For example, when Bobby and Pamela bounce up to the Southfork ranch to announce their elopement, Miss Ellie comes to the door wearing a heavy coat. It’s as if she’s warning Pam: This is a cold house, full of cold people. Enter at your own risk.

Later, J.R. stands on Southfork’s darkened front porch, stewing because he fears Bobby and Pam will soon give Jock his long-awaited first grandson. The camera pans above the porch to Bobby and Pam’s brightly lit bedroom window and we see how the couple is literally overshadowing J.R.

Also, when Ray tosses Pam into the freezing pond, is it not unlike the dangerous situation she has plunged into by marrying a Ewing?

Southfork lends itself to the atmospherics, too.

The ranch we know best – the one real-life Texans call the world’s second most famous white house – isn’t seen until “Dallas’s” second season. In “Digger’s Daughter” and the other inaugural episodes, another estate stands in for the Ewings’ homestead.

This Southfork is bigger and feels more mysterious. It sits in a sea of yellow grass, making it look a little lifeless, if not downright haunted.

Some of the performances in “Digger’s Daughter” are as unfamiliar as the setting. Victoria Principal is more relaxed here than in later seasons, and Larry Hagman’s initial outing as J.R. is more sinister than mischievous.

In this episode’s final scene, when J.R. declares he won’t underestimate Pam again, Hagman smiles – not with his mouth, but with his eyes.

It isn’t the J.R. grin we’re used to, but it still leaves us wanting more.

Synopsis: Bobby Ewing, son of a wealthy oil-and-cattle clan, marries Pamela Barnes, the daughter of his father’s enemy. Bobby’s brother J.R. tries to break up the marriage by recruiting her ex-boyfriend Ray Krebbs, the Ewings’ ranch foreman, to seduce her, but Pam turns the tables on Ray by threatening to expose his secret affair with Lucy, J.R. and Bobby’s teenage niece.

Comments

I love the moody look of the first season. I wasn’t expecting that. I guess the producers probably weren’t either, but I think they made it work in their favor. Southfork 1.0 doesn’t exactly look like the most inviting place. Sure it’s spacious and lovely, but it can be a cold place too. I think all the characters feel that at times.

Wow: 15.7 million viewers for an April mini-series. That is a number the new show wouldn’t have a clue how to react to… I suspect there would be heart attacks all around. I’m too young to have seen these earliest years first run. I started watching right around the introduction of Pricilla Pressley as Jenna. So I really don’t know how this mini-series was billed or what enticed viewers to tune in. I guess much of it can be chalked up to TV being a different animal then with so fewer options. Still, if you compare the 1980 and 2010 census numbers there are roughly 82 million more people today. You’d think that population increase would somewhat offset the more choices issue…

I remember when I first saw these early episodes I just couldn’t believe all the heavy clothes these people were wearing. As a Wisconsin native I found myself wondering if there is a Dallas, WI unicorporated village I didn’t know of. Mother nature just doesn’t always cooperate with the wishes of producers I guess.
Like most first seasons of long running shows this show had a ways to go to get to a point which we’d all recognize as Dallas. Ken plays this early Cliff so straight. I recall reading the character was intended to be a Bobby Kennedy type and you could see bits of that here but Cliff sure wouldn’t end up this way. We also have JR and Ray as allies which is so hard to imagine. I’d say the characters that are most recognizable in a time prizsm sense are JR and Lucy. JR is scheming from the very beginning and Lucy is a useless floozie. (I know there are plenty of Lucy lovers out there. But I was never one of them. The role of rebellious teen just always seemed out of place on this show to me. How many of the core storylines of this show needed a rebellious teen to move the plot forward in any way?) The other thing that just jumps out is Jock and Ray smoking on screen. I don’t think we ever saw another lit cigarette (outside of extras) after this mini-series.

What amaze me the most in this 1st episode, apart for the very sinister atmosphere, is the stunning beauty of Victoria Principal face. It’s shocking, in later seasons, when shey play crys, her face is completely different. OK, maybe surgery. But why a beauty like that would make surgery ?
I notice too the very classy clothes she wears. I love her look, on this first season, far from ugly looks of mid-80 (ridiculous clothes + ugly++ frizzy hair style).

On the opposite, the beauty of linda grey’s face increase, until its climax in 1986/88. (and she was still sexy at 70 yo)

I regreat we don’t learn more about those two barbecues when Ray date Pam.

[…] 15. Welcome to the family. On the day Bobby brings Pam (Victoria Principal) home to Southfork and introduces her as his new bride, J.R. cheerfully takes her outside for a pre-dinner tour of Miss Ellie’s garden, where he offers his new sister-in-law a bribe to “annul this farce.” When Bobby approaches with a concerned look on his face, J.R. explains he’s just “talking a little business” with Pam. “Mama don’t like business talk with supper on the table,” Bobby says. “Well, you know Mama. She’s so old-fashioned,” J.R. responds with a chuckle. It was the first time we heard his mischievous laugh, and it signaled the arrival of a different kind of villain. (“Digger’s Daughter”) […]

[…] rich history. In the first, Cliff gets drunk in a dive bar, evoking memories of Digger’s debut in “Dallas’s” first episode. Later, Rebecca storms into Southfork, confronts Miss Ellie and points out how the Barnes men […]

[…] 10. Let the games begin. J.R. and Pam’s first fracas set the stage for all the fights that followed. On the day she arrived at Southfork, he gave her a friendly tour of the ranch – then offered her a bribe to leave: “I’m willing to spend some money now to avoid any inconvenience. But if you insist upon being driven away – which you surely will be – you’re going to come out of this without anything, honey.” Pam ignored J.R.’s offer, but maybe she should’ve taken the money and run. Think of all the pain she would’ve been spared! (“Digger’s Daughter”) […]

[…] and driving away with little Christopher. It’s a landmark moment in the life of the series. “Digger’s Daughter” shows Bobby and Pam arriving at Southfork as newlyweds, and now she has spent her last night under […]

[…] the shot of his Mercedes rolling across the Southfork plains recalls a similar shot at the end of “Digger’s Daughter.” Also, during “The Road Back’s” cattle drive sequence, we hear Ray speak on his walkie-talkie […]

[…] “Digger’s Daughter” introduces Bobby as Ewing Oil’s “road man,” who supplies state legislators with broads and booze to get them to vote the company’s way. “Spy in the House” features a state senator who takes bribes. In “Old Acquaintance,” another senator’s mistress jeopardizes his appointment to a federal job. […]

[…] brings to mind one of the famous moments from the original “Dallas:” J.R.’s clash with Pam in “Digger’s Daughter” (Season 1, Episode 1). Like the 2013 version, the 1978 edition also ends with J.R. delivering an […]

[…] sparkling chemistry, the scene fills in some blanks for “Dallas” diehards. For example, “Digger’s Daughter” opens with Bobby and Pam stopping at a gas station not long after their spur-of-the-moment wedding […]

[…] first roll in the hay is still the hottest — and the ickiest, in retrospect. On the day Bobby brought home his new bride Pam, Lucy was in the hayloft getting chummy with Ray, who was still carrying a torch […]